


Pay No Mind to the Demons

by crikey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Gen, another of them angst-ridden dh fics because i know my niche, i love the da you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 03:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20900573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crikey/pseuds/crikey
Summary: April, 1998: The war rages through Britain, Voldemort rages through Europe, Dumbledore's Army waits restlessly, and the Hog's Head uses its kitchen for possibly the first time since the 1970s.





	Pay No Mind to the Demons

In the breathless, panicked first moments of the room’s tenure as a hideaway, it had nothing in it— just a hammock, and a Gryffindor banner, and Neville Longbottom, who slung himself into the hammock with some violence and rubbed hard at his eyes. He was achy— he had been achy for months, since the Carrows started to believe that he was the heart of Hogwarts’ rebel problems. (Which, as Seamus had pointed out once, he was.)   
  
It was dull at first, but the DA outside sent him news for the entire next day— who had detention, who had been threatened at dinner, and a lengthy but amusing anecdote that Seamus sent line by line over the course of fifteen minutes— and the room existed to keep him from being bored; it sprouted a bookshelf after a few hours, so Neville spent the evening paging listlessly through herbology books. 

He had been hungry for hours, but it didn’t get pressing until around midnight. He paced, bored and sore, and tried his hardest to think about food, at first his favourite foods specifically, and then, lying on his hammock, in the vaguest terms— any dinner, any food, anything at all. 

It was an accident, when he finally thought, in frustration, that if the room couldn’t make him any food, it could surely find it somewhere else. He noticed the painting a few minutes later, swung his feet off his hammock and crossed the room quickly— “Don’t reckon you’ve got painted food,” he said. 

The girl in the painting didn’t reply, just crooked her finger at him; the portrait swung open like a door (with stunning ferocity Neville was hit with homesickness for Gryffindor tower.) For a moment he just gaped at the gloomy, dim tunnel within; lighting his wand, he hoisted himself into the pathway. The portrait swung shut behind him and he jumped.

The room had never failed him yet; he took a shaky breath and headed down the tunnel. 

  
✴✴✴  


“You’re lucky You-Know-Who’s goons put a curfew on us,” said the gruff proprietor of the Hog’s Head, once he’d gotten Neville a plate. “Otherwise you’d have been stuck in that painting for a while.” 

Neville said, around a mouthful of bread, “Thank you, sir.” 

“Guess I don’t need to tell you about the goons,” said the man; “You look pretty ragged, boy. They’re still running the school, then?”  
  
“You could say that,” said Neville. 

The old man sat across from him at the little table. “Aberforth,” he said, holding out a hand.   
  
“Neville,” said Neville, shaking it.

“You’ll be the Longbottom kid, then,” said Aberforth. “You’re getting a reputation.” 

“Oh,” said Neville. “A good one?”

Aberforth laughed. 

  
✴✴✴  


There was little to do in the room; Neville spent the morning lying in his hammock thinking of ways to solidify his hideaway— fortifying it against the Carrows, and then their supporters, and then the Death Eaters, and then anybody who’d wish him ill— and the afternoon pacing back and forth and thinking. The news came through on the galleons— the tortures and the injuries— and the room got steadily longer, to make room as Neville paced. 

He was immeasurably glad when the portrait— Ariana, her name was— turned up to fetch him for dinner. 

“It’s been a long time since I had any students in here, I’ll tell you that,” said Aberforth. “Figured those new teachers of yours shut down Hogsmeade visits.”   
  
“Bit after Christmas,” confirmed Neville. He took a drink of the firewhiskey Aberforth had provided and only sputtered a little— “I was banned in October, though.”   
  
“Yeah, I bet you were,” said Aberforth. He shook his head a little ruefully— “Your generation’s a damn rebellious lot, I’ll tell you. So was the last one.” 

“What, you weren’t?” said Neville. 

Aberforth laughed. “I didn’t run an army in a school.” 

  
✴✴✴  


Seamus joined him on the third day of his confinement, face bruised and swelling around his eyes; he smiled anyway when he heard Neville say with surprise, “Merlin's— your _face_.”   
  
“Oh yeah, that,” said Seamus; he shook his robes off and sat heavily in Neville’s hammock; Neville was about to protest when a new one sprouted from the wall next to him. 

“What happened?” he said, anxiously. “What about your family?”   
  
“They’re not going after my family,” said Seamus, but he frowned. “I mean… they might. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Merlin’s pants,” said Neville. 

Seamus leaned back into his hammock and blew out a breath, then said, “I don’t think it’s the same thing. I’m not you. No offense. They don’t think _ I’m _secretly leading an army, they just think I have a smart mouth.”

Neville cracked a smile— “You do have a smart mouth.” Seamus laughed a little bit. 

“It’s been boring,” added Neville; “Glad to have you.” 

“I’m hungry,” said Seamus, who had little patience for emotion, then or ever. 

“That’ll take a few hours,” said Neville. “The room can’t make food, for some reason.” 

“Weird,” said Seamus. “Probably Anthony could tell us why.” 

Neville grinned. “How’re things going out on the Hogwarts front?”   
  
“Bad,” said Seamus. “Swear to God— I wouldn’t have come in, I’d rather be out helping. But… mate, without you, they’re going up the walls. I’ve just had the worst three detentions of my life, I think the next one would kill me.”

Neville reflects on how purely awful the last three must have been to get through Seamus’s staunch year-long _it looks worse than it is_ insistence; Seamus added, after a moment, “That made it sound worse than it was.” 

  
✴✴✴  


“Two of ya,” said Aberforth, as Seamus climbed down from the tunnel after Neville. “Joyful day.”   
  
Seamus held out one hand to shake— “Seamus.”   
  
“Delighted,” said Aberforth; he squinted at Seamus critically. “Thought you were the worst I’d see,” he said to Neville, who laughed. 

“Not even close,” said Seamus cheerfully. 

“Reckon there’ll be more of you?” said Aberforth. Seamus and Neville exchanged a glance. 

“Probably not,” said Seamus. “I don’t know if anybody else had a reputation this bad.”   
  
“Good,” said Aberforth. “Galleons don’t grow on trees, you know.” 

  
✴✴✴  


For three days it was only Seamus and Neville, and they were driving each other a little insane. Seamus put a gramophone on all day long, and Neville paced, and paced, and paced. “You’re gonna fuck up your knee,” said Seamus, one leg dangling out of his hammock. 

“I don’t even feel it anymore,” said Neville; his leg had been acting funny since March and they’d had little luck mending it. 

“Bullshit,” said Seamus. 

  
✴✴✴  


Anthony and Ernie turned up together; as Ernie was washing blood off his face in the little bathroom Anthony unpacked his things and gave them the latest news— all the anecdotes that Seamus was no longer around to relate slowly through the galleons, and the necessary bad news. “They’re not dealing well without you two there,” he said, “I think they’d got really used to having scapegoats. Michael says he’s not going to skip Transfiguration midterms—” they were in three days— “but they hate him, so he might have to.” 

“What’d you do?” said Seamus, a little impressed; Anthony grinned. 

“I just got my arse kicked in class,” he said, a little self-consciously. “But then Ernie asked when You-Know-Who was going to figure out that they were fighting a losing battle. Then he got his kicked, too.” 

“Brilliant,” said Seamus, only a little sarcastically. He glanced at Neville. “You wanna tell Ab we’ve got two more mouths, or should I?”

“Ab?” echoed Anthony, frowning.   
  
“The room can’t make food,” said Neville, “So it’s been giving us a path through the grounds to the Hog’s Head instead.” 

“Weird,” said Anthony. He thought about it for a second, head cocked sideways— “Probably something to do with elemental transfiguration. Michael might know.”

Ernie rejoined them, lip split impressively. Seamus slapped him gently on the back— “Good show, Macmillan.” 

“Yes, well,” said Ernie, flattered. 

  
✴✴✴  


The first girls showed up a day later— Lavender and Parvati, the sole remaining Gryffindors in seventh year, must have been waiting for the Carrows to connect them to Neville and Seamus, and Padma was just related to Parvati. As Lavender bitched about the size of the bathroom and the Patils bitched about the mess, Seamus headed down the tunnel for food. 

“Seven,” repeated Aberforth; he shook his head. “Merlin's beard, boy, I’m not made of money.” 

“You make the cheapest food in the world,” said Seamus, leaning against the wall. “Reckon the Hog’s Head will survive.”

Aberforth handed the basket over with a grunt. “Bring the basket back,” he said. “I’m not made of baskets, either.” 

“Thanks,” said Seamus. 

  
✴✴✴  


Hannah showed up three days later, with her wireless and her trunk, emptied of school supplies and filled instead with desserts from the kitchens; they all sat happily and wearily and ate the lemon tarts and, for fifteen minutes, Hogwarts didn’t seem so unfriendly.

“I’ve been eating out of the Hog’s Head for a week,” Neville told Hannah, eyes shut blissfully. 

“The _ Hog’s Head? _” said Hannah with dismay. “Ew.” 

“Room doesn’t make food,” said Anthony, cradling the remaining half of his tart as though it were a child. “I think it’s like, an elemental transfiguration sort of—”   
  
“Gamp’s Law,” said Padma. 

“Yes, that. What’s Gamp’s Law, again?”

“I don’t know,” said Padma. “Michael might.” 

“Weird,” said Seamus, to get them off the subject. They were fugitives from school and they were bloody well going to act it.

Their dessert break, such as it is, didn’t last long; Hannah pulled the radio out and they put it on the station for Potterwatch; as they waited for the episode to start, they pestered Hannah about the DA still out in the school, and she listed with false nonchalance the day’s grievances. Neville listened gravely, his chin resting on his hands; Ernie and Parvati leaned in; Seamus slouched hideously with his arms folded. 

Later that evening, as the others played cards and the radio blared shouty rock, Hannah said to Neville that the school was going to lose hope, if things stayed this way. 

“We’ll figure that out when it happens,” said Neville.  
  
“If it happens,” corrected Hannah; Neville sighed. 

“When it happens, Hannah,” he said; her brow furrowed, but she didn’t argue. She knew him well enough to know that pessimism didn’t come easily to him; his pessimism had been borne of the horrid year they’d had. 

“Well,” she said, “We better start thinking about it fast, then.” 

  
✴✴✴

  
Michael Corner showed up that evening, and though they asked him about what was going on outside he had little to say that they hadn’t already heard, and he was irritable. (He probably failed his Transfiguration midterm, he said in a pissy tone, in case anybody cared to know.) 

“Why is food an exception to Gamp’s Law?” Anthony asked, once the rest of them had left Michael alone to sleep; Michael opened one eye and Anthony almost regretted bothering him, he looked so annoyed. Fortunately for Anthony, Michael was a greater pedant than he was a bastard. 

“You can’t make food out of nothing,” he said, “Conjured stuff is just magic and air, it’s not going to feed you. Same reason conjured money isn’t worth anything, and conjured animals are stupid. Why d’you ask, does the room not make food?” 

“Nope,” said Anthony. 

“Oh, _ naturally,_” said Michael. He rolled over in his hammock. “Let me sleep, now, alright?”

  
✴✴✴

  
The DA started to pour in, after that; Michael had been the last real scapegoat the Carrows had, and without him they were lashing out at anybody who looked at them funny. Three days later they gained eleven new fugitives; Aberforth had to start charming his baskets with deeper bottoms.   
  
“You’re going to run me out of business,” he groused, sticking rolls into the basket three at a time. “Bloody Death Eaters. You know there’s a caterwauling charm now? Can’t put my nose out of my own front door without bringing bloody murder to my step.” 

“Real inconvenient for you,” remarked Seamus.

“Smartarse,” said Aberforth. Seamus shrugged. 

“What I think,” said Aberforth philosophically a moment later, “is your lot moved too fast. You should have waited for June to start going into hiding— it’s only April, in a month there’ll be nobody left but Slytherin.”   
  
Seamus rolled his eyes. “Wish I’d thought of that when the Carrows asked us all when we’d like them to start making death threats, I’d have asked them to push it back a month.” 

“Smartarse,” said Aberforth again. 

  
✴✴✴  


It was Seamus’s birthday and Lavender wouldn’t leave him alone— “Come on,” she said, “You’re not turning eighteen without a cake.” 

“I don’t want to think of what Ab would call a cake,” said Seamus. “Give it a rest.” 

“We could go down to the kitchens,” she said, “The room will make us a passage.” 

"The house elves would have been told to turn us in,” said Seamus. “They have to obey the Headmaster.” The discussion of the Hogwarts kitchens had been brought up a number of times, primarily by those with stomachs too weak for the Hog’s Head’s meals or dietary restrictions. 

“Ask Aberforth for some eggs and flour and sugar then,” said Lavender, “I’ll make you a cake myself.”

“Lavender, it doesn’t matter,” said Seamus. “It really doesn’t. There are more important things happening.” 

"Don’t you see that’s why it _ matters _ ?” said Lavender. “Come _ on— _this is our chance to pretend for one night that things are normal and we’re just here to celebrate your goddamn birthday.” 

Seamus laughed a little bitterly. “We’d have to be pretending pretty fucking hard, wouldn’t we?” 

“Seamus,” insisted Lavender. 

“I won’t make Aberforth make me a cake,” he said. “Drop it.”

  
✴✴✴  


There were two bottles of firewhiskey in the basket when Seamus went down to pick it up; he frowned at it, and Aberforth said, “Happy birthday.”

“Who told you?” said Seamus, overcoming his initial jump of annoyance and settling into deep gratitude that there wasn’t a cake.

“Neville,” said Aberforth. “You’re of age, so I can legally give you that. Don’t let anybody under seventeen touch it.”

“Yeah yeah,” said Seamus. “‘Course not.”

  
✴✴✴  


Seamus had never seen what most of his classmates were like when drunk, and it was hilarious. Ernie’s tone was rambling and his vocabulary more extravagant; Michael was even less chummy and even more swotty than usual and the two of them nearly got into a fistfight over whether Ernie was using the word “colloquial” correctly, which Anthony’d had to break up. Hannah said everything in a stage whisper. Lavender got giggly. 

It was Seamus’s birthday but he didn’t yet feel like getting drunk; he ended up sitting with Anthony against a wall with his chin in his hands, only a little tipsy.

“Happy birthday,” Anthony remembered to say. He was sober, since somebody had to be.

“Thanks,” said Seamus. “You know— given the uh, the circumstances, this is the best birthday I could ever have.” 

“Okay,” said Anthony.

“Like— are you eighteen?” 

“No,” said Anthony. “June.”

“Lucky you,” says Seamus. “Well, you know someone who’s had a birthday, right? Before—” he gestured around the room.

“Michael’s was in January,” said Anthony. 

“It fucking sucked,” said Seamus. “Didn’t it?”

“A little,” said Anthony. Michael had gotten his mum’s birthday present already opened and ransacked, and then moped for the rest of the day. 

“This is about as nice as it gets,” said Seamus, “I don’t have to worry about the Carrows, everybody’s drunk, and it’s still the shittiest birthday I’ve ever— oh, shit.” 

They dug their galleons out at the same time, but the message was for Seamus: HPPY BDAY D. 

“Huh,” said Seamus. “Where’d he get a—”

“Luna’s,” said Anthony. “Probably.”

“Probably,” said Seamus, who doesn’t care who. He pulled his wand out and carefully changed it himself— CHEERS.

It changed back to usual— twelve zeroes, no meetings planned anymore— and, satisfied that the message was received, Seamus pocketed the coin. He had nearly forgotten Anthony, until he heard, “Might get a drink after all.” 

“Sure,” said Seamus. “Plenty to go around.”

  
✴✴✴  


"We still have what,” said Hannah, “a month of school left? Six weeks? Neville, are we just going to wait?”

“We can’t do anything else, can we?” said Neville. 

“I mean,” she said, “What about everybody else? What about when summer comes? We can’t hide here forever.” 

“We won’t,” said Neville. “If nothing else we’ll be able to Apparate from Hogsmeade. I’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” said Hannah with frustration. 

“You know nothing’s stopping you leaving,” said Neville. 

“I’m not going to leave,” she snapped back. “I just don’t know why we’re still here.”

Neville gives her a ghost of a smile— “Waiting.”

“What _for_?” said Hannah.

“Harry,” said Neville.

  
✴✴✴  


They heard the news on Hannah’s wireless; Terry heard it on Michael’s, which he’d left in his dorm. A Gringotts break-in would be news on its own, but the DA should remember that the Sword of Gryffindor was sent there, and it would be heartening anyway to hear that Harry Potter is alive. Nobody made the choice but Terry; Neville rather wished that he’d _ asked _ first, but he understood the reasoning.

It meant more than it seemed to— it always did. But Terry had to be carried into the room.

“I think this is it,” said Neville. “I really do.”

“I don’t,” said Seamus bluntly. “Neville, I’d like to see him as much as you do, but I really don’t think it’d do anybody a favour for him to turn up here.”

“Are you kidding?” said Neville. “Didn’t you see how happy everybody was to hear about him— if Harry turns up here, if he wants our help again— it’s good for us, Seamus.”

“Yeah, we were all real chuffed until they worked Terry over like that,” said Seamus. “Look— Harry hasn’t been here, he doesn’t know what it’s been like. I don’t reckon he’d know even if we did need him— and we don’t.”

“We don’t need him?” repeated Neville. “Look at where we _ are! _”

“We got _ this _ far without him,” said Seamus insistently.

Hannah said, tentatively, “We could use a little help.”

“But it’s not Harry’s responsibility,” said Seamus. “He doesn’t have to bail us out. He’s got his own things to do, doesn’t he?”

“Seamus—” said Neville. He took a deep breath. 

“If he does come here,” said Hannah, “We’ll be happy to see him.”

“Yeah, of course we will,” said Seamus, a little defensively. “Just… come on, don’t get your hopes up.”

  
✴✴✴  


When Ariana showed up that night, Seamus, embroiled in a game of Exploding Snap with the Patils and Hannah, just said “Yeah, whatever” when Neville asked if he should go instead. 

“You know why he wanted to go,” said Hannah, not really asking.   
  
Seamus snorted. “He thinks Harry Potter’s waiting in the Hog’s Head to save all our arses,” he said. 

“Well, don’t be a prat,” said Hannah. “Just be his friend, alright, when he comes back. No _ I told you so. _ ” 

“Yeah, I know,” said Seamus a little bitterly; they were all hoping for something lately and Neville’s hope was just the dumbest. “What d’you reckon is dinner today?”   
  
“Nothing good,” said Padma, and they all laughed. 


End file.
